Forest of the Pygmies

by Isabel Allende

  The commandant seemed relieved to learn that the bothersome foreigners would be leaving his territory, and he was willing to help them as long as Angie kept her promise to take her place in King Kosongo’s harem. Kate had feared that would happen, and she had a story ready. She asked where the king was. Why hadn’t they seen him? Was he ill? She hoped that the sorcerer who meant to marry Angie Ninderera hadn’t put a curse on him from across all that distance. Everyone knew that the betrothed or the wife of a witch man is untouchable. And this was a particularly vengeful man, she said. Once before when an important politician had insisted on paying court to Angie, he had lost his position in government, his health, and his fortune. Desperate, he had paid some hirelings to murder the sorcerer, but they hadn’t succeeded because their machetes melted like butter in their hands, she added.

  Perhaps Mbembelé was impressed with her story, but Kate couldn’t tell because she couldn’t read his expression behind the mirrored glasses.

  “This afternoon His Majesty King Kosongo will preside over a celebration in honor of the woman and the ivory the Pygmies will be bringing,” he announced.

  “Forgive me, Commandant, but isn’t dealing in ivory outlawed?” Kate asked.

  “Ivory, and every product here, belongs to the king. Is that understood, old woman?”

  “Understood, Commandant.”

  In the meantime, Nadia, Alexander, and the others in the International Geographic group were making their preparations. Angie couldn’t help, as she wanted, because four of the king’s young wives came to get her and take her to the river, where they kept her company during a long bath overseen by the old man with the bamboo stick. When he raised his arm to administer a few preventative canings to his master’s future wife, Angie laid him out flat in the mud with a right to the chin. Then she broke the bamboo over one ample knee and threw the pieces in his face, with the warning that the next time he lifted a hand to her she would dispatch him to the land of his ancestors. The four girls were overcome with such a fit of laughing that they had to sit down; their legs wouldn’t hold them. Awed, they felt Angie’s muscles and realized that if this husky woman entered the harem their lives might possibly take a turn for the better. Perhaps Kosongo had at last met an opponent who was his equal.

  As for Nadia, she was instructing Beyé-Dokou’s wife, Jena, how to disable the rifles with the resin. Once Jena understood what was expected of her, she trotted off with her tiny little girl steps toward the soldiers’ barracks without further questions or comments. She was so small and insignificant, so quiet and discreet, that no one noticed the fierce gleam of vengeance in her chestnut-colored eyes.

  Brother Fernando learned the fate of the missing missionaries through Nzé. Though he had suspected it, the shock of finding his fears confirmed was traumatic. The missionaries had come to Ngoubé for the purpose of spreading their faith, and nothing could dissuade them, not threats, not the hellish climate, not the solitude in which they lived. Kosongo had kept them well isolated, but gradually they had begun to win the confidence of a few villagers, which brought down the wrath of the king and Mbembelé. When they overtly began to oppose the abuse suffered by the Bantus and to intercede for the Pygmy slaves, the commandant put them and their belongings into a canoe and shipped them off downriver. A week later, however, the brothers returned, more determined than ever. Within a few days they disappeared. The official version was that they had never been in Ngoubé. The soldiers burned the few things they owned, and it was forbidden to speak their names. It was no mystery to anyone, however, that the missionaries had been murdered, and that their bodies had been thrown into the pond of the crocodiles. No trace of them remained.

  “They’re martyrs, true saints; they will never be forgotten,” Brother Fernando promised, drying the tears running down his gaunt cheeks.

  At about three P.M. Angie returned. She was nearly unrecognizable. Her hair was combed into a tower of curls and gold and glass beads that brushed the ceiling. Her skin was gleaming with oil and she was dressed in snakeskin sandals and a voluminous tunic of bold colors. She wore gold bracelets from wrist to elbow. Her arrival filled the hut.

  “She looks like the Statue of Liberty!” Nadia commented, enchanted.

  “God almighty, woman! What have they done to you?” the horrified missionary exclaimed.

  “Nothing that can’t be undone, Brother,” she replied and, jingling her gold bracelets, she added, “With all this I can buy a whole fleet of planes.”

  “That is, if you escape from Kosongo.”

  “We’re all going to escape, Brother.” She smiled, very sure of herself.

  “Not all of us. I’m staying to take the place of the brothers who were murdered,” the missionary replied.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Last Night

  THE FESTIVITIES BEGAN ABOUT FIVE in the afternoon, when it was a little less hot. A climate of great tension hovered over Ngoubé. Nzé’s mother had spread the word among the Bantus that Nana-Asante, the legitimate queen, greatly mourned by her people, was alive. She added that the foreigners were planning to help the queen recover her throne, and that this would be the last chance they had to free themselves of Kosongo and Mbembelé. How long were they going to put up with his recruiting their sons to turn them into murderers? They were spied on every minute, with no freedom to move about or think, and they were poorer every day. Everything they produced, Kosongo took away. While he was piling up gold, diamonds, and ivory, the people could not get basic medical care. The woman spoke in secret with her daughters, the daughters told their women friends, and in less than an hour most of the adults shared the general restlessness. They didn’t dare enlist the guards, even though they were members of their own families; they didn’t know how they would react. Mbembelé had brainwashed them; he held them in his fist.

  The anxiety was greater still among the Pygmy women because that afternoon the allotted time would run out for saving their children. Their husbands had always managed to come up with the elephant tusks in time, but now something was different. Nadia had given Jena the fabulous news that their magic amulet, Ipemba-Afua, had been recovered, and that the men were coming not with ivory but with a determination to confront Kosongo. The women would have to fight with the men. They had borne their slavery for years, believing that their families would survive if they obeyed. Their submission had yielded little fruit, however; their living conditions grew steadily worse. The more they put up with, the worse the abuse they suffered. As Jena explained to the other women, when there were no more elephants in the forest, Mbembelé and Kosongo would sell their children anyway. Better to die rebelling than live in slavery.

  Kosongo’s harem was also in an uproar because they had found out that the king’s future wife was not afraid of anything and was almost as strong as Mbembelé; she had mocked the king and had knocked the old man down with one punch. The women who hadn’t been lucky enough to witness that scene couldn’t believe it. They were afraid of Kosongo, who had forced them to marry him, and they had a healthy respect for the crotchety old man who had the task of guarding them. Some believed that the arrogant Angie Ninderera would be tamed in less than three days and would become one of the most submissive of the king’s wives—that’s what had happened to them—but the four young women who had gone with her to the river, and who had seen her muscles and her attitude, were convinced that wouldn’t happen.

  The only ones unaware that something was brewing were precisely those who should have been best informed: Mbembelé and his “army.” Authority had gone to their heads; they felt invincible. They had created their own reality, in which they felt comfortable, and since no one had ever defied them, they had grown careless.

  By Mbembelé’s orders, the women of the village were put in charge of preparations for the king’s wedding. They decorated the square with a hundred torches and arches fashioned from palm branches. They piled up pyramids of fruit and assembled a banquet with what they had at hand: hens, rats, l
izards, antelope, cassava, and corn. Containers of palm wine began to circulate among the guards early on, but the civilian population abstained, just as Nzé’s mother had instructed them.

  Everything was ready for the dual ceremony of the royal wedding and the delivery of the ivory. It was still twilight, but the torches were already lit and the odor of roast meat was heavy on the air. Mbembelé’s soldiers and his pathetic court were lined up beneath the Tree of Words. All of Ngoubé was crowded along both sides of the square, and the Bantu guards were standing at their posts, armed with machetes and clubs. Wood stools had been provided for the foreign visitors. Joel had his cameras loaded, and the rest of the International Geographic group was on the alert, ready to act when the moment came. Nadia was the only one of the group missing.

  Angie Ninderera was waiting in a place of honor beneath the tree, looking impressive in her new tunic and gold ornaments. She did not seem in the least worried, despite the many things that could go wrong that evening. When Kate had outlined her fears earlier that morning, Angie had replied that the man who could frighten her had yet to be born, and she added that Kosongo would soon see who she was.

  “It won’t be long until the king offers me all his gold just to get me out of here.” She laughed.

  “Unless he throws you into the pond with the crocodiles,” muttered Kate, who was highly nervous.

  When the hunters arrived in the village carrying their nets and spears, but without elephant tusks, the inhabitants realized that the tragedy had been set in motion and nothing could stop it. A long, collective sigh traveled around the square. In a way people felt relieved; anything was better than suffering the horrible tension of that day any longer. The Bantu guards, confused, surrounded the Pygmies, awaiting instructions from their chief, but the commandant was nowhere to be found.

  A half hour dragged by, during which anxiety increased to an unbearable level. The containers of liquor circulated among the young guards, whose eyes by now were bloodshot, and who had become talkative and disorderly. One of the Leopard Brotherhood barked a command at them, and they immediately put down the palm wine and stood at attention, but that did not last long.

  A martial drum roll finally announced the arrival of the king. The march was led by The Royal Mouth, accompanied by a guard carrying a basket of heavy gold jewelry as a gift for the bride. Kosongo could afford to appear generous in public because as soon as Angie became part of his harem, the so-called gifts would be returned to him. Next came the wives; they, too, covered in gold. The old man who supervised them trailed along behind, face swollen and with only four loose teeth in his head. A notable change was evident in the attitude of the women, who were acting more like a herd of frisky zebras than sheep. Angie waved, and they answered with broad smiles of complicity.

  Behind the harem came the throne-bearers carrying the platform on which Kosongo was seated in his French armchair throne. He was wearing the same garb they had seen before, including the impressive hat with the beaded curtain that covered his face. His mantle appeared to be scorched in several places, but wearable. The Pygmies’ amulet was missing from Kosongo’s staff, and in its place was a similar bone that from a distance could pass as Ipemba-Afua. It did not befit a king to admit that a sacred object had been stolen from him. Beyond that, he was confident that he didn’t need the amulet to control the Pygmies, whom he considered to be as low as the beasts of the jungle.

  The royal procession came to a halt in the middle of the square, so everyone would have a chance to admire the sovereign. Before the porters carried the platform to its place beneath the Tree of Words, The Royal Mouth asked the Pygmies to present the ivory. The hunters stepped forward, and the entire village could see that one of them was carrying the sacred amulet, Ipemba-Afua.

  Beyé-Dokou made his announcement in a steady voice: “The elephants are gone. We cannot bring more tusks. Now we want our women and our children. We are going back to the forest.”

  That brief speech was met with sepulchral silence. The possibility that the slaves might rebel had never occurred to anyone. The first instinct of the soldiers of the Leopard Brotherhood was to shoot the entire crew of hunters, but Mbembelé wasn’t there to give the order, and the king still had not reacted. The population was caught off guard because Nzé’s mother hadn’t told them anything about the Pygmies. For years the Bantus had benefited from the slaves’ labors and it was definitely not to their advantage to lose them, but they understood that the equilibrium of the past had been broken. For the first time, they felt respect for these little people—the poorest, most defenseless, and vulnerable in the forest—for showing unbelievable courage.

  Kosongo waved over his spokesman and whispered something into his ear. The Royal Mouth passed on the order to bring in the children. Six guards went to one of the corrals and shortly afterward reappeared leading a wretched little group: two elderly women dressed in raffia skirts, each with babies in her arms, surrounded by children of various ages, tiny and terrorized. When they saw their parents, some gave an indication of running to them, but they were stopped by the guards.

  “The king must do business; it is his duty,” announced The Royal Mouth. “You know what happens if you do not bring ivory.”

  Kate Cold could not bear the anguish any longer, and although she had promised Alexander that she wouldn’t intervene, she ran to the middle of the square and stopped right in front of the royal platform, which was still on the shoulders of the bearers. Forgetting everything about protocol, which demanded that she prostrate herself, she started yelling insults at Kosongo, reminding him that they were international journalists and that they would tell the world about the crimes against humanity that were taking place in this village. She wasn’t allowed to finish as two soldiers armed with rifles lifted her off her feet. She kept shouting, feet kicking in the air, as they carried her off toward the site of the crocodiles.

  The plan that Nadia and Alexander had sketched out with such care collapsed in a matter of minutes. They had assigned a responsibility to each member of the group, but Kate’s untimely intervention sowed chaos among the friends. Fortunately the guards, indeed all those present, were confused.

  The Pygmy designated to shoot the king with the ampoule of tranquilizer had hidden among the huts, but now he couldn’t wait for his best shot. Hurried by circumstances, he put the blowgun to his mouth and blew, but the dart intended for Kosongo hit the chest of one of the bearers carrying the platform. The man felt something like a bee sting but he didn’t have a free hand to brush away what he thought was an insect. For a few instants, nothing happened, then suddenly his knees buckled and he fell to the ground unconscious. The other bearers were not prepared, and the weight of the platform was too great for them to hold; it tilted and the French armchair slid toward the ground. Kosongo gave a yell, trying to keep his balance, and for a fraction of a second he was suspended in air. Then he crashed, tangled in his mantle, hat askew and bawling with rage.

  Angie Ninderera decided that the time had come to improvise, since the original plan had gone awry. With four long strides she reached the fallen king; she swept aside the guards trying to hold her back and, voicing one of her loud Comanche yells, she grabbed the king’s hat and jerked it off the royal head.

  Angie’s action was so unexpected, and so daring, that everyone was stopped in place, as if posed for a photograph. The ground didn’t tremble when the king’s feet touched it. His cries of rage had not left anyone deaf; birds hadn’t dropped from the skies, nor had the jungle convulsed in its final death rattles. Looking upon Kosongo’s face for the first time, no one was blinded . . . only dumbfounded. When the hat and the curtain fell aside, what everyone could see was the unmistakable head of Commandant Maurice Mbembelé.

  “Kate said that you two looked too much alike!” Angie exclaimed.

  By then the soldiers had reacted and rushed to surround the commandant, but no one dared touch him. Even the men who were dragging Kate to her death released the write
r and ran to their chief, but they, too, were afraid to help him. Finally Mbembelé succeeded in untangling himself from his mantle and with one motion leaped to his feet. He was the image of fury: streaming sweat, eyes bulging out of his head, foaming at the mouth, roaring like an enraged beast. He lifted one gigantic fist with the intention of pounding Angie into the ground, but she was already out of reach.

  Beyé-Dokou chose that moment to step forward. It took enormous bravery to defy the commandant in normal times. To do so now when he was so indignant was suicidal. The tiny hunter looked insignificant facing the enormous Mbembelé, who rose like a tower before him. Looking up, way up, the Pygmy challenged the giant to compete in one-on-one combat.

  A hum of amazement ran through the crowd. No one could believe what they were seeing. People crowded closer, pressing behind the Pygmies, and the guards, as surprised as the rest of the population, could not hold them back.

  Mbembelé hesitated, caught off guard, as the slave’s words penetrated his brain. When finally he comprehended the outlandish daring that such a challenge implied, he erupted in thunderous laughter that spread out like waves for several minutes. The soldiers of the Brotherhood imitated him; they felt it was expected of them, but their laughter was forced. Events had become too grotesque, and they didn’t know what to do. The hostility of the villagers was tangible, and they could sense that the Bantu guards were confused and near rebellion.

  “Clear the square!” ordered Mbembelé.

  The concept of Ezenji, or a hand-to-hand duel, was not new to anyone in Ngoubé; that was how prisoners were punished and, in the process, a diversion was created that the commandant found entertaining. The only difference in this case was that Mbembelé would not be judge and spectator; he would himself be a participant. Obviously fighting a Pygmy did not give him a moment’s worry; he would crush him like a worm, but first he would make him suffer.